Within the scope of the Ministry of Health’s efforts to encourage breast milk and to provide mothers with information and correct habits about breastfeeding, the Program for Encouragement of Breastfeeding and Baby-Friendly Hospitals was initiated in 1991 in order to ensure that breastfeeding becomes a successful and established practice in hospitals providing maternity services.

Among the hospitals that provide maternity services, the hospitals that inform the expectant mothers about breast milk and breastfeeding since their pregnancy, enable mothers to breastfeed their babies immediately after birth, and help mothers on how to breastfeed their babies with up-to-date trained health personnel are awarded the title of ‘Baby Friendly Hospital’. In this context, our hospital was awarded the title of Baby Friendly Hospital in 2004.

Breastfeeding Policy:

Our Breastfeeding Policy is carried out in cooperation with the Gynecology and Obstetrics, Child Health and Diseases units of our hospital. All health personnel are informed about our breastfeeding policy and the importance of breast milk at regular intervals every year.
Our health personnel working in the relevant departments are given a total of 18 hours of training on breastfeeding, including 15 hours of theoretical and 3 hours of practical training. Relevant health personnel who are newly recruited to our institution receive this training within the first 6 months.
Pregnant women who have completed their 32nd week who come to our hospital’s pregnancy polyclinic for examination are given training on breast milk and breastfeeding and this situation is recorded in their files.
A brochure on breastfeeding is provided to pregnant women and mothers who have given birth.
While deciding on the use of sedative analgesics or anesthetics during delivery in our hospital, it is taken into account that the mother will breastfeed the baby in the first half an hour after delivery.
If babies are born by normal or cesarean section, they are given to their mothers immediately so that they can have skin contact with their mothers and start breastfeeding within the first half hour, and the mother is assisted by the health personnel.
In our hospital, no food other than breast milk can be given to the baby in the first 6 months after birth, and it is not recommended.
Our health personnel are assisting mothers who have given birth on how to breastfeed and how they will continue to secrete milk when they are separated from their babies.
Babies are placed in the same room with their mothers so that they can breastfeed whenever they want, day and night.
In our hospital, pregnant women and mothers are educated about the benefits of the first breast milk (colostrum).
Breastfed babies are be given any type of bottle, pacifier etc.
Pregnant women and mothers do not encounter any plates, pictures, posters, banners, tools, materials, brochures or gifts that bear the brand of any breast milk equivalent product or encourage the use of breast milk equivalent.
In our hospital, marketing personnel who are equivalent to breast milk do not come into contact with pregnant women and mothers.
The mother is not encouraged to use a certain brand of product when it is necessary to use a breast milk substitute medically.
Our health personnel do not accept the promotion of breast milk equivalent products marketing staff. In our hospital, samples of breast milk equivalent products are not taken with promotions, donations, or low prices.
For the follow-up of babies discharged from our hospital, it is recommended that they take them to the Healthy Child Polyclinic, district health centers or mother-child health centers in our hospital within 15 days after birth, in line with their preferences.
Our hospital, which aims to be an exemplary “Baby-Friendly Hospital”, is open to cooperation in order for all health institutions to be “baby-friendly”.